Before the global pandemic, sophomore Miley Naugle participated as a part of the cross country team. A family friend’s daughter introduced the long-distance sport which she now loves. 

In a typical cross country meet where the number of people can vary, striders make the steps she takes larger. 

“I like to count my steps. Sometimes I feel like I’m going slow. Then I set a number in my head and I’m like, okay, I have to do this many striders because it kind of helps me pick up my pace a little bit,” Naugle said.

People who play sports have a more realistic outlook of life compared to when they didn’t play sports. 

“Before running, before COVID-19 too I would say definitely things were a lot easier. So you’re having many things to worry about. But then running kind of helps you build up that tough mindset where not everything in life is going to be easily handed to you, and you are going to have to work for stuff,” Naugle said. 

Everyone has a driven purpose for doing sports, mainly when they do the sports for multiple years. 

“The team is my biggest thing, especially right now because I’m not allowed to run. I still love to go to the practices and just hang out with everyone. Just coming back to practice the next day and getting to see everyone and talk to everyone about what happened yesterday is really nice and refreshing,” Naugle said. 

Younger people who are just getting into sports always look for advice from more experienced players. They look for tips and tricks to get to the top the fastest way possible. 

“You can’t compare yourself to others. You have to compare yourself to yourself because everything, especially in cross country, every single race is going to be different. And so you can’t compare yourself to open. Everyone is going to have good and bad races,” Naugle said. 

Naugle will face the challenge of another surgery this year. She is hopeful to be back to running as soon as possible.